On Monday, news leaked that Amash was one of four congressmen who lost their committee spots after members of the Republican Steering Committee – which doles out assignments – reportedly looked over voting records and other documentation. House Speaker John Boehner controls the Steering Committee, and Amash, like the others who lost their committee spots, was known to cross leadership on some key votes.

Amash, 32, of Cascade Township in West Michigan, had charted a libertarian, independent course throughout his first term, voting against leadership when he didn’t think it was moving to cut spending or limit government enough.

. . .

“For a party that’s trying to expand its base and make sure it reaches out to young people and new groups, I think it’s pretty outrageous,” Amash said. He called it “a slap in the face” to the growing libertarian wing of the Republican Party, noting that he voted along with leadership 95% of the time during his first term.

“It’s not acceptable to have budgets that are unbalanced to the year 2040,” he said.

Amash also disagreed with what he described as an entrenched view among Republican leaders that defense spending is off limits for cuts. He believes that while the nation’s military must remain strong, that defense spending should be on the table for reductions and that it could serve as a way to find a bipartisan agreement with Democrats on spending cuts.

“I think they (Republican leaders) are willing to raise taxes to avoid any defense cuts,” said Amash. “I think they’re willing to take really bad deals to avoid any defense cuts.”

Amash, 32 . . . said it’s tough at first to gain the respect of older members . . .

“It’s hard to break into that group at first and get them to see you as an equal,” he said. “But you are representing a district just like they are, and you have ideas and you have a perspective that maybe they aren’t familiar with because of the generation gap.”

Tough shit. It's no secret that the Republican party is hopelessly defective. If Libertarians want to achieve something, they'd be better served by finding common ground with Democrats. On social issues there is huge overlap between the two, on foreign policy issues there is room for quite a bit of shared opinion, and a moderate libertarian could even find a reasonable amount of common ground with a moderate liberal on economic issues if they were willing to compromise instead of being some non-negotiating Ron Paul wannabe.

Seriously, Libertarians have almost nothing in common with mainstream Republicans. They disagree on social issues, they (at heart) disagree on economic issues (the Republican/Democrat divide on economic issues is not big vs small government, its who big government is going to benefit and who is going to pay for it), and they disagree on foreign policy issues. Even ostensible philosophic points of agreements (e.g. "States Rights") are ultimately a con from the Republican side of things, being little more than a cynical talking point to use in arguing against policy they dislike, rather than a genuinely treasured philosophical ideal. The Republican Party, at its core, ought to be everything a genuine libertarian professes to hate, so why do they get suckered into thinking, "Hey, conservative means we're kind of on the same side." I'm a fairly liberal individual. My father is a traditional Republican conservative. Which of us do you think share more in common with a fellow like Gary Johnson? Hint: it's not dad.

If Justin Amash wants to achieve something, he can jump ship and help strip control of the House away from the least responsible group of politicians America has seen in a long time. Otherwise, he can sit there and pout, because the Republican Party probably isn't going to seriously reform until the Baby Boomers are dead. Until then, they really do just need to be marginalized.

If Libertarians want to achieve something, they'd be better served by finding common ground with Democrats.

Now there's a toughie: is it better to try to court the party with whom the rhetoric is nearly identical but is victim to a plague of inconsistency and hypocrisy or the party with whom less than half the rhetoric is shared but suffers from relatively less hypocrisy (in regards to that rhetoric that is shared)? I would think Libertarians should attack on both fronts and hope to move both parties towards more rational conversation.

Last edited by geldedgoat on Fri Dec 07, 2012 6:46 pm; edited 2 times in total

Rep. Amash says, “I would again push back on this idea that it is some kind of Tea Party versus moderate versus mainstream theme. People like me are out there are calling for reductions in Pentagon spending, calling for working with the Democrats. And actually if you look at the four people who were removed from the Committee, we’ve been the ones who’ve been willing to work with Democrats on a lot of these tough spending issues.”

When O’Brien asks if he thinks Speaker Boehner should be fired, Rep. Amash responds, “We’re going to see how the next few weeks go. And whether he’s willing to make amends. And put out that scorecard. Let the American people see what he based the decision on.”

If Libertarians want to achieve something, they'd be better served by finding common ground with Democrats.

Now there's a toughie: is it better to try to court the party with whom the rhetoric is nearly identical but is victim to a plague of inconsistency and hypocrisy or the party with whom less than half the rhetoric is shared but suffers from relatively less hypocrisy (in regards to that rhetoric that is shared)? I would think Libertarians should attack on both fronts and hope to move both parties towards more rational conversation.

In "American politics, a genuine attempt at reasoning towards best policy," that would be fine. In "American politics, team sport," I don't think it would be especially effective. We seem to be stuck with the latter for some reason. Personally, I don't like sports.